The Toronto International Film Festival in Canada in September will present the new animated film ‘The Peasants’ by directors DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman. The directors, whose previous work, ‘Loving Vincent’ received an Oscar nomination, have chosen artists from Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, and Serbia to create their newest film.
“‘Loving Vincent’, a previous work by the directors that is well-known to Lithuanians, is the first painted animation feature film in the history of cinema. It has been seen by 6 million people worldwide. With their second work, ‘The Peasants’, the directors set the bar even higher: frame by frame, the film was painted in oil in a highly sophisticated realistic manner. For more than two years, 70 artists in 4 studios in different countries have been working on this amazing work,” says Agnė Adomėnė (Art Shot), one of the producers of the film.
‘The Peasants’ is a film adaptation of the classic novel by Władysław Reymont, the Nobel Prize-winning author. Painted in a realistic style, the film tells the story of a young woman, Jagna, a peasant in late 19th-century Poland, who is forced by circumstances to marry an older, wealthy man, even though she is in love with another man – his son. Lithuanian audiences will be able to see ‘The Peasants’ in 2024.
“I have no doubt that the directors’ new film will once again go down in cinematic history, and we are happy to have been part of it here in Lithuania. The fact that we have been chosen to make an animation work of this level of sophistication is a huge accolade for our industry,” says producer Agnė Adomėnė, revealing that one second of the film used to take up to a week to make.
The film will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival Special Presentations. The Toronto International Film Festival, held on 7-17 September, is one of the largest film festivals in the world, attracting more than 480,000 spectators each year.
‘The Peasants’ is produced by the Polish production company BreakThru Films, the Serbian company Digital Crafts, and co-produced by the Lithuanian company Art Shot. The film is partly funded by the Lithuanian Film Centre.
